What’s so great about that? Ars editors pick the most overrated games

There are no sacred cows on this list of popular games we just don't get.

Everybody has at least one: a game that, for one reason or another, just never appealed to you despite its presence on the "best games of all time" list for many people. A game that you're almost ashamed to admit to hating in polite company, for fear that you'll be branded a gauche iconoclast (or, worse, an ignorant troll). A game that makes you question not just your tastes, but the concept of popular taste as a whole. I mean, what do people see in that game? This is an anthology of those games for some of Ars' editors.

We go into this list knowing that our picks are going to be baffling to some of you, and that we're in the extreme minority with most of these picks. That's kind of the point. Before you accuse us of just trying to "stir the pot" with intentionally subversive picks, know that the author of each of these blurbs truly and honestly just doesn't like the game being discussed. Also know that, no matter how popular a game or series is among the general public, we fully believe that every game has its flaws, and that there is no title that can (or should) be universally loved by literally everybody.

With that, let the slaughtering of the sacred cows begin!

Dragon's Lair

by Kyle Orland

I was too young to catch the whole Dragon's Lair craze in the '80s, but I distinctly remember the first time I saw the game sitting alone in a movie theater lobby sometime in the early '90s. My reaction can be divided into three distinct stages.

Stage 1 (After seeing the game's "attract mode" animation from across the lobby): Holy crap? What is... how do they get graphics like that? Is there a VCR under there? The whole game doesn't really look like that, does it? No... it can't. Can it?

Stage 2 (After putting in a dollar—A WHOLE DOLLAR—to try it out): Oh my god, the game does actually look like that! I'm actually going to get to control a real cartoon! This is so awesome!

Stage 3 (After making a total of one correct move before dying three times in succession): What the hell was that? That sucked!

Dragon's Lair seems to keep getting ported to new platforms in the decades since I first saw it had that arcade experience (most recently winning a coveted Steam Greenlight spot), so there must be some market of nostalgia-filled gamers whose opinions of the game probably gelled during Stage 1 and 2 above. And while I can appreciate the artistry of the animation, which still holds up today, I find the see-a-flash-and-hit-a-corresponding-button gameplay just truly, utterly, stupefyingly bad.

This isn't just sour grapes after one tough arcade play either... I spent a good deal of time struggling with a CD-ROM version years later just so I could see more of those wonderful, fluid, moving drawings. It didn't change my opinion one bit. As a short film (or even a choose-your-own adventure "interactive" movie), Dragon's Lair would be amazing. As a game, it's awful.

Gears of War

by Sean Gallagher

For Christmas in 2006, there were two things on my wish list: An Xbox 360 and Gears of War. I wasn't disappointed on Christmas morning—the disappointment wouldn't arrive until some time around New Year's.

There were some innovative things about Gears of War's combat engine (shoot from cover! OMG!), and it held up well in multiplayer. But the single-player campaign came nowhere near living up to the wave of hype that Gears of War rode in on. The plot was plodding and monotonous. The AI for "squad members" and the list of commands available to direct them made them more of a liability than an asset most of the time. And then there were the absurd mechanics of that chainsaw assault rifle.

Unfortunately, after the Xbox 360 etched a scratch into my first copy of the game, I actually had to buy a second before I figured out it probably wasn't even worth paying for once.

Halo

by Lee Hutchinson

Halo, how I dislike thee. A first-person shooter with few redeeming qualities, it's the kind of game that would have been released into obscurity had it not been a launch title for the original Xbox. The game sported mediocre graphics, a cliche-filled and unoriginal single-player campaign, and a tired and uninspiring set of multiplayer options. In spite of these detriments, its position as the only multiplayer first-person shooter available to Xbox users guaranteed its success. Apparently when you're dying of thirst in the desert, any drink will do, even if it's your own pee.

Halo's success is particularly cringe-worthy considering how ridiculously inferior it was to first-person shooters available on PC. Its contemporaries include classic AAA titles like Aliens vs. Predator 2, Ghost Recon, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, all of which were vastly superior to Halo in every way but one: they weren't available to Xbox users clamoring for a way to frag their buddies.

The game spawned a plethora of (much better, actually fun) sequels and has legions of fans, but the first game in the series was just plain bad.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

by Andrew Cunningham

I think it was Twilight Princess that ultimately prompted me to give up on modern Zelda games. From the outset, there was something about it that felt perfunctory. It was obviously trying very hard to build a deeper, story-driven game on top of Ocarina of Time's sturdy foundation. And while there were certainly moments of greatness strewn amidst TP's bloated, 30-something-hour running time, in the end it just felt like Zelda-by-the-numbers. Get your sword. Go to the dungeon. Find item (dah dah dah daaaaaah!). Beat dungeon and boss with item. Explore around until you finally find the next dungeon. Repeat.

Twilight Princess was really just the culmination of a long-running trend. Both Zelda and Mario, two of Nintendo's biggest flagships, are respectful of their roots to the point that they sometimes feel fenced in by their conventions. But Mario has taken what made the original games so fun—precision platforming, great level design, and pick-up-and-play gameplay—and pushed it to the fore. Newer games have even forgone the tiresome, empty hub worlds of Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy in favor of a format that puts as little time between turning on the console and playing a level as possible.

Zelda, on the other hand, has taken the best elements from the NES and SNES entries—puzzle solving, exploration, and swordplay, in roughly that order—and weighed them down with over-long tutorials, interminable cutscenes, and fetch quests that pad the games' running time without really adding much to the fun. Twilight Princess added insult to injury by replacing the precise button controls with gratuitous controller waggling (in the Wii version), making it by far my least favorite entry in the series (though, to be fair, I haven't even given Skyward Sword a chance after Twilight Princess scared me off the series).

366 Reader Comments

I'm late to the comments, but I totally agree. It's one of those games that I expected to love (even traded my N64 for a Playstation so I could play it) but ended up hating and just barely forcing myself to finish so I could say I did. The story lost me somewhere around the is he/is he not a clone part (I never could figure out which it actually was or why I should care). Come to think of it, I didn't give a shit about any of the characters, and the fact that all your abilities were stored in materia made them pretty much interchangeable anyway. And the unskippable minute-and-a-half long summon spells were just obnoxious. I get that it was cool at the time that they could render all these monsters and explosions in 3D, but getting yanked out of the action to watch canned spell sequences 8000 times in a row really killed the immersion for me. Plus, it pissed me off that I spent half the game trying to stop a meteor from hitting the planet, but the end boss kept spamming his one attack that obliterated half the solar system (but somehow only managed to shave a few HP off of my characters).

Scroll back a page or two I mentioned Marathon several times. Half the Halo haters out ther don't even have a clue about Marathon... Or how Halo relates to it. Or how much better Marathon was from any of the so called "superior" shooters of the time.

Hey a mac user! Marathan was terrible compared to it's PC contemporaries (ie. doom). Holding it up as a shining beacon is just as delusional as all the console gamers that thought Goldeneye for n64 was a great FPS.

For the Halo haters.... you have to remember, when it came out for Xbox, Goldeneye was basically all you had to compare it to on consoles. The level of difference there is like Doom 3/Quake 4 vs Doom 1, or N64 vs SNES, or PS2 vs PS1.

Despite the naysayers, it was the 1st FPS with vehicle combat, BF1942 was still a year away.

It did lose some of it's edge by being delayed a year for the Xbox launch. When it was shown as a PC game behind closed doors at E3 before MS bought Bungie, it blew everyone who saw it away. No one had done what they were doing.

Scroll back a page or two I mentioned Marathon several times. Half the Halo haters out ther don't even have a clue about Marathon... Or how Halo relates to it. Or how much better Marathon was from any of the so called "superior" shooters of the time.

Hey a mac user! Marathan was terrible compared to it's PC contemporaries (ie. doom). Holding it up as a shining beacon is just as delusional as all the console gamers that thought Goldeneye for n64 was a great FPS.

For the Halo haters.... you have to remember, when it came out for Xbox, Goldeneye was basically all you had to compare it to on consoles. The level of difference there is like Doom 3/Quake 4 vs Doom 1, or N64 vs SNES, or PS2 vs PS1.

Despite the naysayers, it was the 1st FPS with vehicle combat, BF1942 was still a year away.

It did lose some of it's edge by being delayed a year for the Xbox launch. When it was shown as a PC game behind closed doors at E3 before MS bought Bungie, it blew everyone who saw it away. No one had done what they were doing.

Haha... "Doom better than Marathon."

That is some serious purple polka dotted crack you are smoking there.

(And this has nothing to do with Mac vs. PC nor should it. A game is a game.)

Scroll back a page or two I mentioned Marathon several times. Half the Halo haters out ther don't even have a clue about Marathon... Or how Halo relates to it. Or how much better Marathon was from any of the so called "superior" shooters of the time.

Hey a mac user! Marathan was terrible compared to it's PC contemporaries (ie. doom). Holding it up as a shining beacon is just as delusional as all the console gamers that thought Goldeneye for n64 was a great FPS.

For the Halo haters.... you have to remember, when it came out for Xbox, Goldeneye was basically all you had to compare it to on consoles. The level of difference there is like Doom 3/Quake 4 vs Doom 1, or N64 vs SNES, or PS2 vs PS1.

Despite the naysayers, it was the 1st FPS with vehicle combat, BF1942 was still a year away.

It did lose some of it's edge by being delayed a year for the Xbox launch. When it was shown as a PC game behind closed doors at E3 before MS bought Bungie, it blew everyone who saw it away. No one had done what they were doing.

Haha... "Doom better than Marathon."

That is some serious purple polka dotted crack you are smoking there.

(And this has nothing to do with Mac vs. PC nor should it. A game is a game.)

You're right, except in this case, the game you're holding up as a shining paragon isn't that great, and as people have been tryin to point out to your thick ass, the only reason you thought it was is because it was released on a system famous for its dearth of games. Bungee is and always was overrated. Remember when they released a buggy piece of shit that trashed people's hard drives and had to be recalled? Oh no, you don't because they were the gods who provided one of the 4 games you had to play on your system growing up.

Ok I am no fan of Microsoft and have never owned any Xbox. That said; regarding Halo:“The game sported mediocre graphics”Are you SERIOUS? OK maybe I’m remembering wrong – I played it on PC some years later and I loved the look of it then. In 2001 was it not graphically awesome for its time? It wasn’t? (maybe it wasn’t and I had the wrong idea all these years. In 2001 I was playing Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament and Final Fantasy VII, myself).

“unoriginal single-player campaign”OK Andrew I just don’t trust you now. When I think of the campaign I think of:An alien race with religious reasons to unlock a megaweapon which was another alien race on a RING PLANET while a space marine with an AI card which was ALSO a loveable sidekick tried to stop them with some enjoyable voice acting… And the action of sticky grenades, the Needler, REAL TIME VEHICLE CHANGE FOR FUCKS SAKE INCLUDING FLYING VEHICLES EVEN MODERN GAMES DON’T HAVE THOSE FEATURES WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

“Its contemporaries include classic AAA titles like Aliens vs. Predator 2, Ghost Recon, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, all of which were vastly superior to Halo”…ok hmmm. I never played those. In my experience I wanted Halo cause it had aliens and a cool story rather than the humanoids and no-story of Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament. Maybe I just assumed it was better cause I heard it was the cool new thing… I dunno. But wait did those titles have vehicles? Flying vehicles? That you could use at-will? Cause that’s always been a big plus to me.

No, it was great. Great storyline, great music, great artwork in the cut scenes between missions. All of the things Bungie is known for.

BadassSailor wrote:

dantesan wrote:

morfraen wrote:

dantesan wrote:

Scroll back a page or two I mentioned Marathon several times. Half the Halo haters out ther don't even have a clue about Marathon... Or how Halo relates to it. Or how much better Marathon was from any of the so called "superior" shooters of the time.

Hey a mac user! Marathan was terrible compared to it's PC contemporaries (ie. doom). Holding it up as a shining beacon is just as delusional as all the console gamers that thought Goldeneye for n64 was a great FPS.

For the Halo haters.... you have to remember, when it came out for Xbox, Goldeneye was basically all you had to compare it to on consoles. The level of difference there is like Doom 3/Quake 4 vs Doom 1, or N64 vs SNES, or PS2 vs PS1.

Despite the naysayers, it was the 1st FPS with vehicle combat, BF1942 was still a year away.

It did lose some of it's edge by being delayed a year for the Xbox launch. When it was shown as a PC game behind closed doors at E3 before MS bought Bungie, it blew everyone who saw it away. No one had done what they were doing.

Haha... "Doom better than Marathon."

That is some serious purple polka dotted crack you are smoking there.

(And this has nothing to do with Mac vs. PC nor should it. A game is a game.)

You're right, except in this case, the game you're holding up as a shining paragon isn't that great, and as people have been tryin to point out to your thick ass, the only reason you thought it was is because it was released on a system famous for its dearth of games. Bungee is and always was overrated. Remember when they released a buggy piece of shit that trashed people's hard drives and had to be recalled? Oh no, you don't because they were the gods who provided one of the 4 games you had to play on your system growing up.

You're right, except in this case, the game you're holding up as a shining paragon isn't that great, and as people have been tryin to point out to your thick ass, the only reason you thought it was is because it was released on a system famous for its dearth of games. Bungee is and always was overrated. Remember when they released a buggy piece of shit that trashed people's hard drives and had to be recalled? Oh no, you don't because they were the gods who provided one of the 4 games you had to play on your system growing up.

Wrong again arrogant ignorant internet troll. But thanks for playing. I had both macs and pc's at the time and played games on both machines. (Don't call them "systems" it makes it sound like you are talking about consoles.) Anyway... There were a few pc shooters I really liked (Dark Forces for one) and I played almost every PC shooter made at the time. Marathon still kicks their asses. Yes even Half Life 1. The only thing that came close to Marathon on the PC around the same time was System Shock 2. (But then both required that you know how to read instead of just mindlessly shooting things with your cute little meathead space marine brought to you by Id Software.)

I wouldn't have cared if they had released Marathon for the n64 it was still a badass game.

And also... The only person in here that's been trying to get anything through my "thick ass" is you with your relentless trollrant.

You're right, except in this case, the game you're holding up as a shining paragon isn't that great, and as people have been tryin to point out to your thick ass, the only reason you thought it was is because it was released on a system famous for its dearth of games. Bungee is and always was overrated. Remember when they released a buggy piece of shit that trashed people's hard drives and had to be recalled? Oh no, you don't because they were the gods who provided one of the 4 games you had to play on your system growing up.

Wrong again arrogant ignorant internet troll. But thanks for playing. I had both macs and pc's at the time and played games on both machines. (Don't call them "systems" it makes it sound like you are talking about consoles.) Anyway... There were a few pc shooters I really liked (Dark Forces for one) and I played almost every PC shooter made at the time. Marathon still kicks their asses. Yes even Half Life 1. The only thing that came close to Marathon on the PC around the same time was System Shock 2. (But then both required that you know how to read instead of just mindlessly shooting things with your cute little meathead space marine brought to you by Id Software.)

I wouldn't have cared if they had released Marathon for the n64 it was still a badass game.

And also... The only person in here that's been trying to get anything through my "thick ass" is you with your relentless trollrant.

Do you have a thing for thick asses?

Ask your mother. And if you are trying to say marathon is better than half life, you are the one trolling, either that or you are mentally defective. As for the terrible Id games, I didn't like any of them either, but nice try. Blake stone, now those were fun. I'll be honest, I played marathon when it came out on Xbox live, it was shitty. And it wasn't due to its age, because I still pick up old games and enjoy them so don't try to think I was judging your god by modern specs, it just wasn't fun.

Your tendency towards hyperbole is astounding. I don't know where you got that Marathon was my "god." (I don't believe in God but that's beside the point.)

As for Id games. Doom-Quake were all Id games. Even if I was comparing them to other brainless shoot-em-ups... Doom was still lame. Wolf3D (And even Blake Stone) were more interesting. I think I'd rather play the whole Space Quest series again rather than doom for 10 seconds. I like games with some semblance of plot. Some idea about WHY I'm doing what I'm doing. Otherwise I just can't do it. (Alien vs. Predator was the shit back in the day) Halo is admittedly newer than the old AvP pc game but it did introduce a lot of mechanics that were inherently new to gunplay games. AvP on the other hand took from pre-existing movies and just adapted the races abilities to the game characters. (Don't get me wrong... AvP was a crazy good game for it's day.) However all it did was adapt gameplay to match movies. Halo may have borrowed a bit of this and that from various sci-fi (including borrowing from Bungie's own game: Marathon) to create the soup that is Halo... But Halo forged a path so unbelievably beyond other games in so many key ways that it's influence cannot be disputed. The only thing it didn't spearhead was graphics. Bungie has always been "just behind" in terms of graphics because they are always pushing all the other envelopes. (The ones that matter.)

And we've devolved to "yo mama" jokes now? You are sounding more and more like the 8 year olds that probably wipe the floor with you in Halo. (Thus the bitterness.)

BTW... just out of curiosity did you ever read the terminals in Marathon?

Also just FYI: The Marathon on the xbox is Marathon: Durhandal (Marathon 2)

Your tendency towards hyperbole is astounding. I don't know where you got that Marathon was my "god." (I don't believe in God but that's beside the point.)

As for Id games. Doom-Quake were all Id games. Even if I was comparing them to other brainless shoot-em-ups... Doom was still lame. Wolf3D (And even Blake Stone) were more interesting. I think I'd rather play the whole Space Quest series again rather than doom for 10 seconds. I like games with some semblance of plot. Some idea about WHY I'm doing what I'm doing. Otherwise I just can't do it. (Alien vs. Predator was the shit back in the day) Halo is admittedly newer than the old AvP pc game but it did introduce a lot of mechanics that were inherently new to gunplay games. AvP on the other hand took from pre-existing movies and just adapted the races abilities to the game characters. (Don't get me wrong... AvP was a crazy good game for it's day.) However all it did was adapt gameplay to match movies. Halo may have borrowed a bit of this and that from various sci-fi (including borrowing from Bungie's own game: Marathon) to create the soup that is Halo... But Halo forged a path so unbelievably beyond other games in so many key ways that it's influence cannot be disputed. The only thing it didn't spearhead was graphics. Bungie has always been "just behind" in terms of graphics because they are always pushing all the other envelopes. (The ones that matter.)

And we've devolved to "yo mama" jokes now? You are sounding more and more like the 8 year olds that probably wipe the floor with you in Halo. (Thus the bitterness.)

You're a Halo fan, I wanted to speak to your level. Maybe because when Halo came out, I'd already played Deus Ex, Half Life, and other much better games on PC, I just don't think it added anything GOOD to gaming, it was like playing in molasses, with limited weapon choices, a pitiful number of players in multiplayer, and I absolutely hate the recharging shield mechanic, it allows for much more reckless styles of play. Also, like I said, it brought in all the neanderthal meatheads into gaming that I now have to deal with on XBL. In fact, it's so bad, I mute everyone not on my friends list. Before Halo, there was the firearms mod, Team Fortress, Tribes, Unreal Tournament, (hell, I even loved the original half life DM multiplayer) etc, and then you didn't even get into mods, All far superior to Halo. But since console tards didnt' get to experience them in other than watered down versions, that is why they act as if something I played and thought "meh" is the pinnacle of everything gaming should be. I'll be willing to discuss with real actual reasons why I think Halo is garbage all day long if you'd like to not devolve it into the typical XBL conversation.

My point is that it didn't add much, and it brought far more negatives to the table than positives, and the only reason it garnered the attention it did is because it was released into a barren wasteland of gimped, watered down pc port shooters. Saying it was a revolution to gaming because it brought FPS's to console crowds is like saying the Easy Bake oven is a revolution in culinary arts because it brings baking to children.

I will agree with you that it certainly upped the level of retards on xbox live. However... multiplayer is only half the game and I can always turn my mic off. But don't pretend (as many do) that there weren't just as many assholes in PC games back in the day. I can remember it like it was yesterday:

(You would think not being able to hear it would make it less annoying but considering half the time they were typing L33T gibberish in all caps...)

As far as Halo adding anything "good" to gaming... it sounds like most of the things that you think Halo "took away" from shooters I think it "added." (so we're never going to agree on that.)

It was a bit slow compared to UT and Quake... but that didn't bother me. It seemed more normal. I liked that there was dialogue not only during cut scenes but there weren't the really long periods of being alone playing physics puzzles in the sand (ala Gordon Freeman) to keep you engaged in the storyline. I loved the fact we were going to a more "sane" idea of how many weapons you could carry because at the time I felt like it was getting ridiculous. Some shooters on the PC back then let you carry 10 or more weapons. That doesn't even make sense. You wouldn't be able to walk for one thing. Beyond that it takes away all the tactical usefulness of having one gun over another. (When you can carry 20 of them... why not just carry em all?) And if everyone can carry the same 20 guns why not just have everyone carry ONE gun? Otherwise the only challenge to the whole thing is a foot race to see who can reach the BFG first. That's not a shooter that's a sock hop race.

The shield mechanic llows for longer engagements (Gunfights in movies last way longer than they do in real life unless you are doing long term trench warfare) Besides... it's the only way you could have aliens with plasma weapons such as they have without vaporizing you in one shot. Not having shields would have broken the game.

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the only reason it garnered the attention it did is because it was released into a barren wasteland of gimped, watered down pc port shooters.

I don't know if you realize it but the 5 year period leading up to Halo's release... shooters had gotten so lame and same-old-crappish on the PC that I had given up shooters entirely. Halo was the thing that revitalized my interest. (I had been wandering off into RTS and RPG land figuring that one day FPS's might be decent again. I am still waiting for a Wing Commander replacement btw.) But anyway... Halo came out... I played it for about 30 minutes (single player only) and I was like... "Ok now this is different. It doesn't seem like voiceless, nameless space marines anymore. Hell even the Marine NPC's have personalities! I like this. This is what I want in game storytelling!" (And after finishing Halo I started reading the novels... of which "The Fall of Reach" and "First Strike" are excellent by the way.)

Also... my interest in Halo had nothing to do with it being on the console and I had finished the game and started another on Legendary long before I even knew it had a multiplayer mode. You understand? At that point I had a windows box and was playing primarily PC games. Halo was the bright light that for me marked a departure from all the things I DIDN'T like that PC games of the time were doing. (KOTOR was the other game that convinced me PC gaming was at least on hiatus for a time if not dead.)

(I'm still holding out for a Wing Commander replacement) And... I'd gladly play it on a console if they support the Saitek sticks or come out with their own.

I will agree with you that it certainly upped the level of retards on xbox live. However... multiplayer is only half the game and I can always turn my mic off. But don't pretend (as many do) that there weren't just as many assholes in PC games back in the day. I can remember it like it was yesterday:

(You would think not being able to hear it would make it less annoying but considering half the time they were typing L33T gibberish in all caps...)

As far as Halo adding anything "good" to gaming... it sounds like most of the things that you think Halo "took away" from shooters I think it "added." (so we're never going to agree on that.)

It was a bit slow compared to UT and Quake... but that didn't bother me. It seemed more normal. I liked that there was dialogue not only during cut scenes but there weren't the really long periods of being alone playing physics puzzles in the sand (ala Gordon Freeman) to keep you engaged in the storyline. I loved the fact we were going to a more "sane" idea of how many weapons you could carry because at the time I felt like it was getting ridiculous. Some shooters on the PC back then let you carry 10 or more weapons. That doesn't even make sense. You wouldn't be able to walk for one thing. Beyond that it takes away all the tactical usefulness of having one gun over another. (When you can carry 20 of them... why not just carry em all?) And if everyone can carry the same 20 guns why not just have everyone carry ONE gun? Otherwise the only challenge to the whole thing is a foot race to see who can reach the BFG first. That's not a shooter that's a sock hop race.

The shield mechanic llows for longer engagements (Gunfights in movies last way longer than they do in real life unless you are doing long term trench warfare) Besides... it's the only way you could have aliens with plasma weapons such as they have without vaporizing you in one shot. Not having shields would have broken the game.

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the only reason it garnered the attention it did is because it was released into a barren wasteland of gimped, watered down pc port shooters.

I don't know if you realize it but the 5 year period leading up to Halo's release... shooters had gotten so lame and same-old-crappish on the PC that I had given up shooters entirely. Halo was the thing that revitalized my interest. (I had been wandering off into RTS and RPG land figuring that one day FPS's might be decent again. I am still waiting for a Wing Commander replacement btw.) But anyway... Halo came out... I played it for about 30 minutes (single player only) and I was like... "Ok now this is different. It doesn't seem like voiceless, nameless space marines anymore. Hell even the Marine NPC's have personalities! I like this. This is what I want in game storytelling!" (And after finishing Halo I started reading the novels... of which "The Fall of Reach" and "First Strike" are excellent by the way.)

Those douches though could be mitigated by private servers, various anti cheat softwares, etc. As for 2 weapons, I ended up doing all of halo with a sniper rifle and either the alien or human assault rifle, because anything else became a liability at some point, so there was no point carrying it. And if we want to play the realistic game, almost every one of those games, including halo, have you wearing power armor, so carrying issues could be explained away in the story. the shield I don't have a problem with, Half life has a shield, you just have to get to a shield station to charge it, it's not the shield that irritates me, it's the self recharge that irritates me, it means I can sit around and wait for it to recharge in safety, and then run out at (for all intents) full health to blast away until you find the next cover. If you are being whittled down, you have to play mroe cautiously because you don't know where the next health will be. The biggest thing that irritates me is that halo got such large numbers of easily impressed people in to gaming, that tehy are now the market, and they are the reason you don't see innovative games outside of indie developers, it snowballed into every game now has to be a sequel that appeals to the lowest common denominator, because the respectable 500k - 1m in sales that used to be a decent selling game on pc are no longer acceptable.

Those douches though could be mitigated by private servers, various anti cheat softwares, etc.

You could play private games in Halo and more importantly... if you're joining random games Halo's matchmaking let you take whole parties of friends with you from game to game. Most of the people I was playing with online were either people I knew in real life or people I had befriended from other games. (normal, non-idiotic people) This was actually preferable to me rather than playing with random people in shooters (and having to install extra shit just to stop cheaters for christ's sake) Then there was the constant need to update video card drivers... assuming the new drivers didn't break other non-gaming parts of windows. (Sometimes they did.)

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As for 2 weapons, I ended up doing all of halo with a sniper rifle and either the alien or human assault rifle, because anything else became a liability at some point, so there was no point carrying it. And if we want to play the realistic game, almost every one of those games, including halo, have you wearing power armor, so carrying issues could be explained away in the story.

Uh, not really. You'd still have trouble walking through doors with 10 guns strapped to you. Not to mention sounding like a clattering machine factory when you walk and not being able to shoulder your rifle due to running your elbows and knees into all the crap hanging off of you. And that still didn't address the point that if you can carry ten guns and everyone else can to... what is the point? You could all carry ten guns or all carry one gun and all have the same advantages/disadvantages over each other. The only "competition" would just be collecting all the weapons first... which is retarded.

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the shield I don't have a problem with, Half life has a shield, you just have to get to a shield station to charge it, it's not the shield that irritates me, it's the self recharge that irritates me, it means I can sit around and wait for it to recharge in safety, and then run out at (for all intents) full health to blast away until you find the next cover. If you are being whittled down, you have to play mroe cautiously because you don't know where the next health will be.

And if we're going to talk realism... health packs? Really? Might as well be red potion. Shield recharging sounds more realistic to me. The only other form of on-battlefield healing I've seen that I might accept as "feasable" would be the tampon-in-the-wound thing from Army of Two. Also... I don't like there being fixed locations for health packs because it encourages camping the health. (One of the things I hated about Quake. The ridiculous floating box of health.)

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The biggest thing that irritates me is that halo got such large numbers of easily impressed people in to gaming, that tehy are now the market, and they are the reason you don't see innovative games outside of indie developers, it snowballed into every game now has to be a sequel that appeals to the lowest common denominator, because the respectable 500k - 1m in sales that used to be a decent selling game on pc are no longer acceptable.

First of all, I was a PC gamer before I played Halo and was not easily impressed. Yet Halo's dedication to story and it's consistent adherence to it in gameplay elements and particularly it's vehicle physics were impressive to me. That said I do agree that while there were some things Halo did well that other games are copying from... not all of the things they are copying belong in those other games. And I think this is at the root of your problem. You don't like how Halo has influenced gaming as a whole. That I can agree with to a point. However this isn't much different from how I felt about Id Software and Unreal. Roughly 2 years after Quake II and Unreal came out I decided I was so sick of the FPS industry that I ran away from it entirely. Such great games like System Shock II, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Marathon, Deus Ex, Thief, Half Life, Marathon and others had paved the way for THIS? (An endless wave of slight graphical improvements to the same boring formula? Neither of them having any story to speak of?) When Unreal Tournament came out after the original Unreal I was like "Ok, they aren't even pretending there's a story here."

What I'm saying here is that it sounds like your problem is more what other developers did in response to Halo more than Halo itself. I think the "echo effect" from other developers made you hate Halo a lot more than you would have otherwise.

(I had this same problem with Eddie Vedder in the 90's. I immediately wanted to shoot people in the face for singing with that nasally drone. It's not so much that I hated Vedder himself as much as the effect he had on the music industry. I was never a fan but I thought Vedder himself was the only person capable of singing like that without being nearly as horrible as when other people tried to do it.) I think of Halo in sort of the same way. They do what they do well... but it shouldn't turn into a fad. But is it their fault if it does?

The gaming industry just like the music industry and film industry suffer from the same "next big thing" problems. Just take this as a sign that gaming is growing up and coming into it's own. Normal people do it now.... so there will be more games that appeal to normal people. There will still be cult classics that people like myself enjoy from time to time though. Personally I'm looking forward to the day when indy developers can do pretty good 3d stuff easily. That day is coming.

Those douches though could be mitigated by private servers, various anti cheat softwares, etc.

You could play private games in Halo and more importantly... if you're joining random games Halo's matchmaking let you take whole parties of friends with you from game to game. Most of the people I was playing with online were either people I knew in real life or people I had befriended from other games. (normal, non-idiotic people) This was actually preferable to me rather than playing with random people in shooters (and having to install extra shit just to stop cheaters for christ's sake) Then there was the constant need to update video card drivers... assuming the new drivers didn't break other non-gaming parts of windows. (Sometimes they did.)

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As for 2 weapons, I ended up doing all of halo with a sniper rifle and either the alien or human assault rifle, because anything else became a liability at some point, so there was no point carrying it. And if we want to play the realistic game, almost every one of those games, including halo, have you wearing power armor, so carrying issues could be explained away in the story.

Uh, not really. You'd still have trouble walking through doors with 10 guns strapped to you. Not to mention sounding like a clattering machine factory when you walk and not being able to shoulder your rifle due to running your elbows and knees into all the crap hanging off of you.

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the shield I don't have a problem with, Half life has a shield, you just have to get to a shield station to charge it, it's not the shield that irritates me, it's the self recharge that irritates me, it means I can sit around and wait for it to recharge in safety, and then run out at (for all intents) full health to blast away until you find the next cover. If you are being whittled down, you have to play mroe cautiously because you don't know where the next health will be.

And if we're going to talk realism... health packs? Really? Might as well be red potion. Shield recharging sounds more realistic to me. The only other form of on-battlefield healing I've seen that I might accept as "feasable" would be the tampon-in-the-wound thing from Army of Two. Also... I don't like there being fixed locations for health packs because it encourages camping the health. (One of the things I hated about Quake. The ridiculous floating box of health.)

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The biggest thing that irritates me is that halo got such large numbers of easily impressed people in to gaming, that tehy are now the market, and they are the reason you don't see innovative games outside of indie developers, it snowballed into every game now has to be a sequel that appeals to the lowest common denominator, because the respectable 500k - 1m in sales that used to be a decent selling game on pc are no longer acceptable.

First of all, I was a PC gamer before I played Halo and was not easily impressed. Yet Halo's dedication to story and it's consistent adherence to it in gameplay elements and particularly it's vehicle physics were impressive to me. That said I do agree that while there were some things Halo did well that other games are copying from... not all of the things they are copying belong in those other games. And I think this is at the root of your problem. You don't like how Halo has influenced gaming as a whole. That I can agree with to a point. However this isn't much different from how I felt about Id Software and Unreal. Roughly 2 years after Quake II and Unreal came out I decided I was so sick of the FPS industry that I ran away from it entirely. Such great games like System Shock II, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Marathon, Deus Ex, Thief, Half Life, Marathon and others had paved the way for THIS? (An endless wave of slight graphical improvements to the same boring formula? Neither of them having any story to speak of?) When Unreal Tournament came out after the original Unreal I was like "Ok, they aren't even pretending there's a story here."

What I'm saying here is that it sounds like your problem is more what other developers did in response to Halo more than Halo itself. I think the "echo effect" from other developers made you hate Halo a lot more than you would have otherwise.

(I had this same problem with Eddie Vedder in the 90's. I immediately wanted to shoot people in the face for singing with that nasally drone. It's not so much that I hated Vedder himself as much as the effect he had on the music industry. I was never a fan but I thought Vedder himself was the only person capable of singing like that without being nearly as horrible as when other people tried to do it.) I think of Halo in sort of the same way. They do what they do well... but it shouldn't turn into a fad. But is it their fault if it does

The gaming industry just like the music industry and film industry suffer from the same "next big thing" problems.

Actually, the original Halo didn't have online multiplayer, you had lan play, or you could use exactly the type of kludgy PC software you are saying made pc multiplayer a chore. Halo 2 introduced mathchmaking and the party system.

I am aware. I was referring to Halo 1's local multiplayer in the first part. (Also I slightly edited my post)

(The part about carrying 10 guns and a tiny bit at the end.)

BTW... even if you hate Halo... Chronicles of Riddick on the OG Xbox was SIIICK! (And at the time it was an xbox exclusive.)

Well, I don't think Halo was completely terrible, I just think it was a mediocre shooter. and for the record, I can easily carry more than 2 guns, that arbitrary number is just as ridiculous as the carry all the guns argument. I preferred games like Deus ex, where you could carry a limited number of equipment, and if it's all guns good for you, hope you don't need to hack a door though. There's nothing worse than gettign to an all flood level and realizing you don't have one of the game's exceedignly rare shotguns, and you're going to blow through your ammo quick.

I'd put Halo in line with playing Quake 2, it was ok to play, I just didn't get in ot it enough to care like I did some of the other games out there,

I might also say that some of the GOOD things about Halo that SHOULD be copied... When developers have tried to copy some of them (such as the vehicle physics) they've failed miserably. I have still yet to see an FPS (especially a multiplayer FPS) that does vehicle physics worth a damn other than Halo.

Half Life 2 might have done something like that but no... We got cartoony Team Fortress with no vehicles to speak of.

I might also say that some of the GOOD things about Halo that SHOULD be copied... When developers have tried to copy some of them (such as the vehicle physics) they've failed miserably. I have still yet to see an FPS (especially a multiplayer FPS) that does vehicle physics worth a damn other than Halo.

Half Life 2 might have done something like that but no... We got cartoony Team Fortress with no vehicles to speak of.

I want to play a driving game, I'll pick up burnout or forza. The vehicles IMO suck in halo. The warthog is a big floaty mess with no sense of mass, the tanks are so slow and horrible I'd rather just walk and shoot, and the banshee si a clusterfuck. Sorry, vehicle sections of any FPS game turn me off. The dune buggy in halflife 2 almost mae me quit playing, but then, they had a gravity gun.

Well you don't have to use them but vehicles are part of modern war. ESPECIALLY part of a futuristic war. In real war you use them or you die. *shugs*

This talk o realism again... Let me disabuse you if a few notions :

In a real war, there isn't a super soldier sent on alone, they're called marines, and they work in teams. In a real war, a soldier wouldn't just run up and commandeer a vehicle and the crew be all "ok! You can drive! This rules". In a real war, the navy doesn't really send in ground troops all that often, see above, that's marines. Also spending 10 years in the navy, I can safely say that if he was a master chief, he'd be a big, fat, loudmouthed guy who's weapon of choice is a coffee mug, not a battle rifle. Also, I've driven a hummer, they don't drive like floaty weightless bumper cars.

Yes but the navy sometimes transports marines... And the UNSC being a spacefaring navy does exactly that. Because otherwise they couldn't get from point A to point B in space could they?

And yes... In the marines If a superior officer wanted your hummer... He takes it. (Also the marines will get out and cover your vehicle if there's no seats and man the chaingun if it's open)

Your grasping now.

No, he doesn't. You can give him a ride, but you are responsible for that vehicle. Nor would you give up your weapon, of course a superior officer would know these things and not ask, it isn't a superior officer's job to be firing the gun directly in most cases, he'd be directing a lot more than a handful of troops.

A Master chief is not an officer, hes a top enlisted.

The Navy pretty much is the marine's ride, it's the purpose of the gator navy.

A Master Chief is also not a Marine, it is a Navy rank, if he was a marine, I'd imagine he'd be Sargeant Major or Master Gunnery Sargeant.

I'm not grasping, I'm just trying to point out the differences between "real" and not since that is a mjor point of contention about the game for you, if you want realism, play America's Army, but it sucks, I'll warn you ahead of time.

I am aware that the Master Chief is in the Navy. Directly under NavSpecWep section 3 (according to the fiction) basically he's like a super navy seal. Assuming he has orders directly from HighCom (overarching authority due to priority of the mission) he can commandeer as he pleases. (This is covered in the novels.)

The marines that you see in the game are normal marines though. Normally rank and file marines never even see Spartans unless they are already in "a world of shit" and the spartans are there to clean house. Some of the Marines don't even know or believe they exist. (They were a classified project for their first 20 years.)

I am aware that the Master Chief is in the Navy. Directly under NavSpecWep section 3 (according to the fiction) basically he's like a super navy seal. Assuming he has orders directly from HighCom (overarching authority due to priority of the mission) he can commandeer as he pleases. (This is covered in the novels.)

The marines that you see in the game are normal marines though. Normally rank and file marines never even see Spartans unless they are already in "a world of shit" and the spartans are there to clean house.

Well, I'll be honest with you, I don't read video game novellizations, every one of them has sucked, and I don't believe fanboy's claims of their awesomeness.

Find a cheap copy at a used bookstore. I've reccomended them to people who dont even play video games and they still enjoyed them. (Although if you do read any of them skip over the one that's just a novelization adaption of Halo 1 because it really does suck.) Eric Nylund wrote all the good ones. The fall of reach and first strike are the ones to read. And... Other than Halo I dont know of any video game novelizations that didn't suck either. (I had to be talked into reading Fall of Reach for that reason.) Read the first 30 pages and see.

I am not saying they are like "the best books EVAR" but they are better than anything I've ever read to do with a videogame by far.

The worst that could happen is you read 30 pages and put it down. 50 cent paperback at a used book store. What's there to lose? At the worst you put it down and remain smug about Halo. No biggie. (And you'll have even more ammunition about "why Halo sucks.")

"The Fall of Reach" is the first and best one. So that would be the one to grab.

Twilight Princess was great. Second best Zelda, after Link to the Past. Ocarina of Time is the overrated one. Sure it was awesome at it's time, but it does not stand the test of time as Link to the Past did.

Pretty good list, but Super Meat Boy is great, as is Halo's multiplayer.

Missing from this list areEVERY God of War and Twisted Metal gameEVERY Elder Scrolls game EVERY Bioware game since Baldur's Gate IIEVERY game from Ubisoft Montreal (Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 2/3)

I don't agree with many of your choices, but Red Dead Redemption is completely out of line. That was a great game with a well though out story-line, characters with depth, interesting mission, and a fairly goof multiplayer with multiple modes to boot.

The Half Life series is the big one for me. It might be on my top 25 list, but certainly none of them are anywhere near best game of all time for me. People rave about the physics puzzles of Half Life 2, but I found them obnoxious and tedious, essentially the game designers trying to show off their physics engine more than being interesting gameplay. The OP gravity gun sequence is cool, and the characters are memorable, and I'll definitely get Half Life 3 as soon as I can once it comes out, but I will never truly understand why the series is one of the most common choices for best ever.

I agree that Halo 1 is overrated, but it's still a great game, and I agree with a lot of the criticisms of Twilight Princess, but love the game anyway. I actually didn't like it after the first playthrough, but it has grown on me.

To a point I agree. HL2 was frustratingly tough in some places, I got the feeling in a few places where it wasn't so much skill as luck getting me through the area. The episode series were just plain aggravating. I recall playing episode 2 through and getting annoyed because a particular nasty was as tough as a boss-type enemy - but with five in front of me, each causing enough damage that two hits kill you. Some simple tactics helped though; which for me destroyed the big thing HL1 brought to the table: enemy AI.

With regards HL1, this is often in the list is because it literally changed the way game AI worked. Mostly because it actually worked quite well; instead of just running at you while you blew them away enemies started thinking out a strategy and would duck behind cover or try and flank you for a better shot. Before that was Duke3D, Quake, and Unreal: run-shoot-duck-run-shoot. It was a game changer, bringing elements of gameplay unheard of before it's time and for quite some time after; and that is what makes HL1 stand out to me.

I felt relieved when I saw Twilight Princess on the list as I thought I was the only one thinking this was an utterly crap game.

The first half didn't even have any quests other than 'go to here to unlock the next area', then after all the levels were unlocked it ended up being a simple series of dull fetch missions with a twist. The twist being the puzzles weren't really solvable puzzles in the sense that logic would prevail - they were a series of annoying, tedious blocks to progression with no obvious answer - combined with the placement of objects so well hidden that you couldn't find them and on your journey to finding them nasty surprises jumped out at you to hinder you that in no way could be avoided. Nasty in the sense that they were quick and cheap and required no real skill in designing.

Halo was decent but not amazing, so I can see it being overrated. I enjoyed UT and BF1942 more, and I played them for the first time about a year after Halo came out, since I just built my first PC at that time. I give it a bit more credit than Lee, but I don't believe he's "wrong" or whatever.

Thank you so much for calling out Halo as a terrible game. I tried it a few times on friend's systems when it came out and was terribly unimpressed, especially coming from a PC gaming background and some of the great PC FPS games. Halo was just bad and I never understood it's appeal.

I also never understood the appeal of Zelda: Twilight Princess. To be honest, I never got past the beginning town, since those missions sucked the living soul out of my body and made me cry for a migraine just to have a better excuse to set the game down than "i didn't like the beginning". No game should make you suffer through that to get to the real content.